


The Before and After of an Eight-Letter Name

by Austennerdita2533



Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt, F/M, Forbidden Love, Longing, Lord Melbourne muses and reflects, Poetic prose (because I'm unable to help myself), Probably more of a character/feelings introspective than anything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 21:46:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15180059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Austennerdita2533/pseuds/Austennerdita2533
Summary: Lord Melbourne ruminates over his feelings for Victoria - how knowing her has blossomed something warm and unexpected inside of him again.





	The Before and After of an Eight-Letter Name

**Author's Note:**

> This has been dormant on my computer for months and months, and although I'm not quite sure what this is supposed to be, I figured I might as well post it? Enjoy.
> 
> xx Ashlee Bree

Men of parliament, not to mention all the prattling gossips of England’s royal court, whispered amongst themselves about how Lord Melbourne only tended to shriveled flower petals of swirling sorrow and constitutional black since Death stole his child, his dear beloved boy; and since Scandal polluted his marriage then swooped away his wife on the outstretched armsleeve of a poet’s reciprocated lust. And perhaps, for a time, they were not mistaken. Once upon a time, perhaps, they spoke with assurance and not mere presumption.

But that was before… 

_Before she shoveled her way inside of him._

It was long before beguiling ‘Lord M’ monikers, or afternoons which were spent galloping across manicured lawns with the wind lapping at their flushed, merry faces. It was before messages of import and banality were scrawled hastily at a table near the window, then exchanged between their two residences all hours of the day or night. 

It was prior to nights of flickering palace candlelight or outings floating with hums from a practiced orchestra. Prior to dipping, dancing steps full of stolen touches which were as charged and as intimate as a bedchamber caress, his fingers grazing along tufts of satin and skin, garnering nothing except crinkled noses and beady-eyed distress from political patrons who schemed to tether a man—nay—a prince around her ring finger as soon as possible. A husband of their choosing. Someone who was distinguished in bloodline yet malleable to governmental suggestion. 

They all schemed to find a predictable clockwork royal who would tame her, rule her. They wanted a controllable man who leashed his queen, thereby making it easier for them to strap their agendas so tight against her bosom she’d scarcely be able to draw a breath of protest.

It was before she arrived at his closed greenhouse door with gardening tools strapped to her petite hips, a spade clasped in either one of her delicate gloved hands, dimples of resolve denting her cheeks. She’d bounded forward with a tenacious spring in her step, delighted affectation reddening her complexion and softening her eyes until they shined with emotion so sweetly undisguised, they muddled his logical senses enough to pool tears of pleasure inside of him. The kind he ventured never to dispose of in front of her.

_He couldn’t. He wouldn’t._

However, this was before she robbed him of breath with a single look, making his chest flutter with feelings that plucked against his heartstrings. It was before she dug into him deep. 

_Deep_ , _deep._

She’d burrowed inside of him so long and wide, so down and deep, that she’d hit his rotting sediment skeleton. Dousing his bereft existence full of so many watery nutrients they’d replenished the golden emerald sparkle of his eyes. 

It was before she conjured a quirk of his eyebrow, trapping him in intrigue. Prompting a hearty laugh from him in moments teeming with irony. 

It was before she nearly made him forget himself when the light filtered in from the window one morning to highlight a tear as it dripped off her dark eyelashes, the stresses of regality and duty too muchfor her to bear alone, and his thumb was primed to catch it. Collect it. His hand twitching to rub along her sweet pink cheek…once. Just once. 

It was before she bent down to pluck away the weeds of monotony marring his careered foreground. She’d added aroma and spice to his public life, all manner of iridescent zest, and somehow had managed to reawaken his slumbering will to continue; encouraging him to vault out of bed with vigor and pride. Pleased to begin a new day. Buoyant to murmur words of advice or flattery into her ear, to feel the bashful warmth of her confidence. More than honored to stand by her side.

It was before she kneeled before his forsaken grave of loveless dirt and kissed her fingertips of spring which gleamed and glimmered with vines of living green inclination.

Planting seeds of white into the gray garden in his chest, she’d ushered beanstalk growth _up up up_ into the heavens for the giants to gape at with surprise as love cleared the brooding clouds once again. And, this time, refused to sway. His heart never would, he feared, knock back down to the ground until he took his last breath on this earth, until he slid into his final goodbye where it could rest without pain.

It was before partiality sprouted thorns inside his breast to slice holes. To tear canyons through all the duty, honor, and integrity he possessed until he bled out permanently.

It was before she rooted around him. Across him. Throughout him. Trapping sentiment -all that desperate, longing, passionate sensibility - in carrot loops and potato tangles that swelled within him and would never unbind. 

It was before a young woman - a queen unparalleled in inches of exquisite dignity - budded him full of nectar and sap. She’d smelled stronger and tasted sweeter than lumpfuls of sublime this second time around. It was before she flooded all of his five senses with reinvigorating rain so distractingly delicious, he was sorely tempted to let it drown out the lectures pontificating restraint and caution in his mind at times. 

With his feet slippery and unsteady around her already, it would not have been difficult for him to stop moving against her pouring current. To stop fighting long enough to drop his balled hands against his sides, letting his kneecaps twinge then twist. It would not have hurt him worse to give into sweet collapse. It would not have pained him more to jerk out of the compliant sling he wore around his head to keep it from spinning into recklessness. 

He could’ve let himself tumble. Topple. Fall. 

Her arms would’ve caught him. They would have cradled his weary head in her lap, warmed his slippery skin. Oh, how refreshing it’d feel to be swept up by her…and trundled away.

If he tilted his head back, it would not have been hard to close his eyes then open his mouth wide so he could drink her damning, ruinous rain. Drunkening himself so amply he could’ve forgotten the vow he’d made to this country, to the crown he’d been sworn in to protect. 

Oh, how satisfying it’d feel to wash away common sense for a moment. What he wouldn’t have done for one chance to partake in the fervor that awaited him on those lips of hers that hadn’t been kissed yet. Because— _oh, how they pleaded to be tasted!_

It would’ve been all too simple for him to let go, to relinquish his heart’s strangulating binds. He could’ve flown toward the one thing which that thrumming ache inside of him wanted…longed for more than most men could bear. Why, it would’ve been far too easy to merely surrender— 

_If only he’d granted himself leave enough to try_. 

But he didn’t. He wouldn’t. 

He…he couldn’t.

No—Lord Melbourne agreed with all the government poppycocks and pretentious, twirling society misses who tweeted tales of ridicule behind his back. The stories were true. The people were correct and mistaken in the same breath. For, before her, all he’d perceived was life’s cruel and unrelenting grey _splat;_ but now, because of her, all he felt was his heart’s vibrant (not to mention unavoidable) _trap_ of adoration. 

Melbourne knew he was damned from the beginning. Doomed beyond doubt or belief. 

It hadn’t taken long for him to realize that where once complacency rested comfortably among feathers, inclination now reigned with daggers stoked hot with red. With frightening certainty and finality, the irrevocable truth of love reverberated straight through him like church bells chiming at midnight. Sharp. Deafening. Poignant. Yes, he knew the moment something pricked his soul like a needle and carved in eight letters of a name: the only one which was destined to occupy a sacred place inside of him always. 

His Monarch. His Home. His Country. 

His Ace of Hearts.

His darling and unfurling, unhesitant Flower of Orchid White.

His True North: the single most transfixed, constellated star of his life.

A woman, a love, a soul mate. A lonely rook chirping and calling out for a peep of reciprocation, but a call which Lord Melbourne would never - could never - answer or dare to sing of as a wife someday. His dearest, his loveliest and most cherished…

_Victoria_.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are lovely, and thank you so much for reading!


End file.
